I’ve been toying around with a couple of my XBox 360 shoot’em ups these past days.  Mostly because all of my moving around and preparing for future moves has left it so the 360 is the only machine I keep permanently hooked up.  Raiden IV I’ve made a pretty large temporary regression in since the last time I attacked it in February.  Getting aced by something that you KNOW HOW TO AVOID JESUS CUNT MCSHITNUGGETS HOW DID I DIE THERE FUUUUUUU- is an extremely frustrating experience.  This kind of frustration has limited me to a few runs a day at best, which is not actually helping me to improve.  Why you gotta make me mad, baby?

Triggerheart Exelica is even worse.  Some backstory: I bought the XBLA version because I absolutely adore the original Arcade version and subsequently put many many hours into the Dreamcast port with its gameplay-perfect Arcade Mode, slightly expanded Story Mode, and bullet hell + modified score system Arrange Mode.  The XBLA version of the game, however, was heavily tweaked from the original– with a simplified scoring system and somewhat rebalanced characters.  I far and away prefer the classic version but I’ve finally started taking the revision seriously.  The game is fairly tame f or a modern shooter and I have enough time in that it’s usually an easy clear (or even no-miss, as reflected by my old gamertag).  Not lately, though.  Despite putting up respectable scores I’ve been suffering strings of embarassing or downright stupid deaths.  Or rather, in spite of completely sucking ass I’m turning in decent scores.  Which is all the more frustrating knowing I’m a good run away from 250M+ clear on the leaderboards.

I promise vengeance and domination when I get my groove back.